more nuclear meltdown in ... five..

i have always taken the stuff off the tray to eat. i think i learned it from my mom, who does this. but today in the cafeteria, i noticed hardly anyone else does this and it struck me that this is maybe some kind of affectation?

Not enough place on the tables for empty trays + you need the tray to take back everything after you’re done = leaving it all on the tray while you eat.

Ding!

Depends how many people are at the table and if the table can comfortably cope with the number of trays. I tend to take stuff off the tray and then put the tray under the table/my seat.

We had trapezoid shaped trays, the better for sitting on square tables together...,

I always leave the stuff on my tray—how else am I going to carry back the rubbish?

Unless there’s like, a totally obvious tray shortage or something.

Besides, I know those trays are more frequently and better washed than the tables are.

I have to eat in my car, you whining babies.

Don’t you have plates in your cafeteria, Kate?

Actually, we don’t have a cafeteria. I was thinking about, like, fast food type joints where they have paper packets and the like.

Besides, I know those trays are more frequently and better washed than the tables are.

Ding!

Fair enough, I always eat off trays in there too. But I’ve never thought of it as a hygiene thing. Perhaps that was something I picked up at a young age and have carried unquestioningly with me ever since. Hmmm.

removing the try is civilized, leaving the tray is pragmatic.

in any case where you can choose civilized, with only minimal discomfort, i’d do it.

It’s strange that you think I would take the empty tray to some far corner of the room! Like ailsa said, it goes under the chair if there’s not enough space for it next to me.

Keeping the stuff on the tray, however, does create a handy ad-hoc “placemat.”

which is better, removing your plate(s) and silverware from the tray, or leaving it all on the tray while you eat?

the trays take up too much space on the tables. Remove your stuff fronm the tray!

I am still torn!!

and establishes ownership of personal space/territory.

Keep tray, it’s cleaner than tables and functions as a placemat to keep your own crumbs and dropped bits and sauce spills off the table that someone ELSE is going to use after you. The trays are going through the Hobart anyway — the tables are lucky if they get a stone-cold rag that smells of sour dishwater and a little bleach.

I don’t understand why it matters how clean the table is.

Ah, Hobart. How I loved to bathe in the stale steam that issued from your ample bosom.

Because your silverware and/or napkin lie/s on it? I’m not so squeamish about GERMS as much as that slight greasiness that most food service-related objects acquire. It squicks me out.

Have you got a canteen in your workplace, Hand? I will have to come and have lunch next time I come and shill to the big boss men. I can compare it to the canteens at other large media organisations (TVN Poland’s beat YLE Finland’s hands down if only for the cherry juice)

You have posh canteens if they have silverware.

yes I’m wondering if tracer goes to elementary school or something.

what about stealing the trays from the dorm cafe to sled down hills?

It doesn’t happen a lot in Norwich.

You need to MAKE it happen, Ceej.

Sam it feels like that, to be in another country. Unavoidable consciousness of not knowing the codes!

after I wrote that I thought for a moment and realized that the cafe nearest me does have trays. So I should just shut up.

I have been in Hand’s office building and it is very swanky although it does have a certain primary school feel to the decor.

I used to hate any place with trays when I was little, I guess because it reminded me of school. My mom loved them, especially the late lamented S&S cafeteria on Gay Street, in Knoxville. And now I like them!

Sorry, I mean S&W. The S&S is on Kingston Pike (and is still open, I think)

Ah, Hobart. How I loved to bathe in the stale steam that issued from your ample bosom.

haha, OTM. Once upon a time I saw a Hobart fall out of it’s hole in the wall.